The first mainland city that the Federal Government has concentrated on is Mt Isa – a place already relatively well served by broadband.

Meanwhile, other areas like Clifton Grove and Millthorpe have been waiting for more than two years for Labor to make good on its election promises.

“The so-called National Broadband Network is an uncosted $43 billion plan that is seemingly going nowhere, being run by a minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, who is in more trouble than the early settlers,” said Mr Cobb.

“The Nationals have been worried about this plan from the start. The Government has now admitted that it is only planning to provide fast broadband to 90 percent of the population, and regional towns of 1000 or less were going to miss out.”

“In all, towns and locations like Manildra in Calare have been told point-blank by Kevin Rudd that they are second class citizens and can forget about the idea of equity with the cities.”

“If the Rudd-Labor Government had not broken the contract set up by the Coalition with Opal, 98% of Australia would be beneficiaries of broadband services.”

Given the Government plans to take eight years to build its network, those living in larger regional towns are also likely to have to wait as they will almost certainly be at the end of the list.

This is completely unacceptable. Labor has stripped away more than $3.3 billion that the Coalition committed to building and future-proofing a fast telecommunications and broadband network in regional Australia that would have covered the entire country.